


Plokhaya Krov

by Tor_Raptor



Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Ballet, Cancer, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Avengers, Leukemia, Medical Procedures, Medical Realism, Surgery, Teen Avengers, liho the cat - Freeform, major character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tor_Raptor/pseuds/Tor_Raptor
Summary: Before Gravesen, Natasha's primary concerns were breaking in new pointe shoes and internalizing Uchitel's endless corrections. Two words changed all that. Plokhaya krov. Bad blood.
Relationships: Natasha Romanoff & Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff & Happy Hogan, Natasha Romanoff & Yelena Belova
Series: The Gravesen Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925263
Comments: 112
Kudos: 73





	1. Sinyek (Bruise)

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, here we go. Welcome to the first of many Gravesen prequels! I wrote this one first, so it only seemed fair to post it first. This piece is heavily inspired by Natasha's nightmare vision from Age of Ultron, both as it relates to plot and overall theme. I think you'll understand what that means as the story continues. This one has 5 chapters, and obviously ends up right before the first chapter of Gravesen picks up. That will happen for all of the prequels, but some start further back in time than others.
> 
> Another thing: September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, and as you probably knew already, this story is heavily centered around pediatric cancer. Pediatric cancer receives only 4% of national funding for cancer research, and some forms of it are still treated with the exact same drugs as they were 40 years ago. It kills more kids than any other disease yet is handled and talked about as if it's rare. It's not. Everything you're about to read in the next five chapters is a fictional account of a very real disease that 1 in every 285 children will face.
> 
> Now that I've given that little spiel, there's one other thing I ought to note: I don't speak Russian. I did my best with Google translate for what little Russian dialogue is here, but it's all written out with the phoenetic spelling and not the Cyrillic alphabet. I don't understand the Cyrillic alphabet, and when I read dialogue in another language I at least want an idea of what the word sounds like instead of reading an indecipherable collection of symbols. Without further ado, enjoy!

The wooden barre felt slippery beneath her fingers. So much so that she wanted to grip it in her hand so she wouldn't slip off, but she couldn't. That was forbidden. Her thumb rested atop the barre as it should, though more often than usual she found herself pressing into it to maintain her balance. Her eyes fixed on the dancer's back in front of her while her legs completed the motions almost subconsciously, having tracked through this same exercise more times than she could count.

Uchitel's voice drove itself into her head like a drill into plywood. Your turnout is an abomination. I want you to look six inches taller. Eyes up. Looking down is a submission to the pain. If you're not sore—you're dead.

But she was sore. In fact, she was so sore that she felt dead. She was used to muscle aches. It was impossible not to be after dancing practically her entire life. She had sprained ankles and ripped off toenails before, but none of that quite compared to this bone-deep ache that pounded through her legs and wrists. It was all she could do to finish the lesson and not collapse to the floor in exhaustion. But Uchitel would eviscerate her if she relented to the pain.

If you're not sore—you're dead.

She survived the lesson somehow and scurried off to the dressing room with the other girls after being told they were acceptable and dismissed for the day. Not good, they never did a good job, only acceptable or unacceptable. Unacceptable meant they would stay and work overtime until they reached acceptable. Natasha doubted she would have made it through overtime today.

"Are you okay?" Yelena asked her as they took off their shoes and prepared to leave. "You rarely get yelled at by Uchitel, but today she was all over you."

"Yeah. Just tired," Natasha replied. She stared at her bare feet and noticed the new bruises scattered across her toes and ankles. Certainly not out of the ordinary for her, but they seemed darker and more plentiful than usual.

"Aren't we all?" one of the other girls huffed.

"I guess so." But Natasha didn't really feel tired. Tired meant, "I missed a few hours of sleep but I'll catch up this weekend." Natasha was _exhausted_.

~0~

Natasha returned home and dropped her dance bag in a heap by the door. She stumbled into the kitchen and opened a cabinet to grab a glass of water, thinking maybe this tiredness was at least in part due to dehydration. Just as she brought the glass to her lips, Liho scampered past and brushed against her leg. She startled, and the glass slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a resounding crack. Broken glass covered the kitchen floor.

"Razvaluha!" Her father would be so angry to learn she'd shattered one of his glasses. She bent down to start picking up the shards, shooing Liho away so he wouldn't cut open a paw. She should have been more cautious with her own hands, as her palm slipped across the sharp edge of a piece. A line of red about two inches long slit open across her hand and began to weep blood.

She stood up and tiptoed around the glass to reach a towel to hold pressure on her cut. Just her luck, Papa chose that moment to come into the room and investigate the commotion. "What's all this?" he asked, glaring at her bag left haphazardly by the front door, the broken glass all over the kitchen, and Natasha standing there with her hand wrapped in a towel, repeatedly nudging Liho away with her foot.

"I dropped a glass and it broke. I'm sorry," she said sheepishly, dropping her gaze to her feet.

"Eyes up," he commanded, sounding exactly like Uchitel. She snapped her head up, conditioned to respond immediately to orders like that. He inhaled, and she braced herself for the imminent shouting, but surprisingly it never came. "Let Mama bandage up your hand, and then clean up this mess. And put your bag where it belongs," he instructed tersely.

"Yes Papa," she said. He picked up the cat and carried him into the other room while Natasha hurried out of the kitchen to find the first aid kit they kept in the closet. In her haste, she knocked her elbow against the doorframe. It hurt far more than it had any right to.

She dashed into the sitting room where her mother sat knitting in front of the fireplace. Natasha still held pressure against her bleeding hand. "Hello malenkiy pauk, how was dance?"

"It was fine Mama, but I'm really tired. And I cut my hand on a broken glass," she explained. "Will you help me?"

"Of course." Mama put down her knitting and caressed Natasha's wounded hand in hers. She gently removed the towel to reveal the cut, which still bled as steadily as if it were fresh. "How long have you kept pressure on it?"

"Five minutes or so."

"That's odd. It shouldn't be bleeding so much."

Natasha shrugged. Mama wrapped the towel around it again and they sat down together for ten more minutes until the bleeding finally slowed to a stop. She pulled a roll of gauze out of the kit and gently wrapped Natasha's hand, expertly so as to restrict her movement as little as possible. When she tucked in the end of the gauze, Natasha flexed and extended her fingers a few times to tests its tightness.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm gonna go clean up now."

"Alright," her mother said, picking up her knitting where she left off. Natasha returned to the kitchen and—much more carefully this time—picked up the big glass shards and placed them in the trash can. With the dustpan and broom, she swept up all the little pieces until the floor was clean. She grabbed her bag from the front door and placed it where it belonged, in her bedroom and out of sight.

Natasha sat down on her bed and tried not to pick at the gauze. She had more chores to do today, but she could barely muster the energy to change out of her dance clothes. Liho sauntered into her room and hopped up beside her. She rested her uninjured hand in his soft black fur and lay back to stare at the ceiling. A part of her considered forcing herself to get up and get her work done, but it was outvoted by the part of her trying to drag her into sleep.

~0~

Natasha awoke half an hour later to the sound of her mother calling her to the kitchen for dinner. She couldn't be late, so she leapt to her feet and hurried to the kitchen, managing to brush her shoulder harshly against the doorframe on her way out. She rushed into the kitchen and took her seat.

"Natasha, why are you late?" Papa asked.

"Sorry. I fell asleep after dance and just woke up." He frowned at her, adjusting the alignment of the fork beside his plate, but seemingly accepted this answer. Mama served dinner, but all Natasha could think about was going back to sleep. She had a full day of school and dance ahead of her tomorrow and at this rate she doubted she'd make it to lunch time without collapsing.

"You need to eat, malenkiy pauk," her mother urged her. But Natasha wasn't hungry in the least. She pushed her food around her plate, managing the occasional mouthful to satisfy her mother, but ultimately ate less than a third of her portion.

"May I be excused?" she asked. Papa didn't look pleased, but he didn't argue when Mama gave her permission to leave. Natasha rinsed her dishes off in the sink and returned to her room. She grabbed her things and went to the bathroom to shower before going to bed early. She let the water run cold instead of hot in an attempt to wake herself up some, but it didn't work. While in the shower, she noticed the deep purple bruising on her feet and some on her arms. She remembered bumping into things more than usual today, and put it off as a result of that. And her feet...they always looked like that. Maybe it was a little bit more than usual, but she probably just needed new pointe shoes.

She dried off, got dressed, and combed her hair. Then she tucked herself into bed and almost instantly fell asleep.

~0~

The next morning she felt much better. Still tired, but a little less like death warmed over. She got ready for school and left, saying goodbye to her mother on the way out. Papa always left for work in the early hours of the morning, so she never saw him leave.

The school day was pretty uneventful. Natasha's fatigue rose and abated in waves throughout the day, but never reached the unbearable level it had been yesterday. "Tasha, are you okay?" Yelena asked her during lunch. Natasha's appetite hadn't quite returned, so she spent the lunch break mostly picking at her food.

"Yeah, why?"

"You just look worn."

"It's been a tiring week," Natasha admitted. "But I'm fine, really."

She survived the rest of the day and met up with Yelena outside so they could walk to dance together. They made the relatively short trek every day, taking the time to gossip about their peers or fantasize about their futures. Today, the walk passed mostly in silence.

They arrived at the studio, which was called the Red Room. Nobody really knew why. It consisted of many rooms, none of which were red, but they knew better than to question Uchitel about her choice of name.

They changed from their school clothes into their tights and leotards, and only then did Natasha realize how dark the bruises on her arms had gotten since last night. Plus, there were more of them than she expected from only two incidents of bumping into things. "They'll heal," she thought, lacing up her shoes in preparation for class.

Her legs started to hurt halfway through warmup, but she forced the pain to the back of her mind and kept dancing. If she slipped or slowed down, she'd be singled out in no time. If she was really lucky, she alone would stay late for one-on-one with Uchitel.

She persevered through barre and center work, and Uchitel didn't notice her struggle at all until they got to turns. Every girl in class hated turns, even those that excelled at them. Uchitel had a special way of drilling turns a la seconde. They did these in flat shoes, fortunately. Natasha doubted her toes would remain intact if they did it en pointe.

Uchitel made them turn until they dropped—literally. She played this insane classical song with a tempo that fluctuated rapidly and expected them to adjust their turning velocity accordingly. The song was exactly thirty seven seconds long; they all knew every detail of it by now. If anyone failed to match the tempo, bumbled, or otherwise sacrificed their form, she pointed at them without a word and they stopped. Only the last three girls standing didn't have to repeat the exercise on the same leg. Then they did the whole thing again on the opposite leg.

They did a similar exercise after, but with a consistently timed song. This time, she shouted out one of the four walls of the room and they immediately changed their spot to that side. This exercise continued until everyone fell out.

Natasha met eyes with Yelena as they got in formation to practice turns, both equally dreading the next fifteen minutes. The last girl standing for spot-changing turns was almost always one of them.

"Let's go!" Uchitel snapped. They hurried into formation and prepped for the first exercise. The music began, and they started turning. Natasha survived the entire song, forcing her rotation faster and slower with the changes of the music. She remembered her first year of training with this particular exercise at the Red Room. She never even made it through half. Now she could sail through it on a good day. Today was not a particularly good day, but she persisted nonetheless.

She, Yelena, and another girl called Annika stood politely in fifth position while the girls who had failed repeated the exercise. Then they all repeated it on the other leg. Once again, Natasha succeeded, though she could feel herself growing fatigued much more quickly than usual.

The first spot-changing turn exercise went fine. Natasha relented before Yelena this time and barely caught her surreptitious smirk in the mirror. On the second, Natasha felt stronger. She whipped her head about cleanly and precisely, never breaking eye contact with her selected spot on the wall and changing expeditiously when shouted at to do so.

"Stop!" Uchitel commanded. Natasha had never in her eight years here been told to stop in the middle of something like that. She halted herself and instantly snapped into fifth position to await further instructions. Only then did she notice the sensation of something warm dripping onto her upper lip. Her hand flew to her nose and came away bloody.

"Natasha, what are you doing bleeding in my studio?" Uchitel inquired, although the ever-present sternness and disapproval in her voice was conspicuously absent.

"My apologies, Uchitel," Natasha said sheepishly. She started to bow her head, but stopped herself, knowing she'd be chastised for not holding her head high. Uchitel held out a tissue and Natasha hurriedly stepped over to receive it. She stood against the side of the studio and held it to her bleeding nose while Uchitel ushered the other girls back into formation to continue the lesson.

"Tilt your head forward, Natasha. This is the only time I will ever allow you to do so." Natasha complied, angling her neck to ensure all of the blood flowed out and not potentially down her throat. She waited ten minutes before daring to remove the tissue, and fortunately the bleeding had stopped. Uchitel excused her for five minutes to clean herself up, then Natasha returned and slipped back into formation for the last half hour of class.

Uchitel dismissed them for acceptable work, but snapped her fingers in Natasha's direction and gestured for her to stay. She knew it hadn't been her best day, but Natasha didn't think she'd performed poorly enough to stay and work overtime. Natasha stood before her teacher, waiting for the inevitable criticism of her performance today.

Instead, Uchitel gently grasped her wrist and pulled it towards herself, walking around and examining the gauze around her hand and the deep purple bruises littering Natasha's arms. She released her wrist and made a complete lap around her. Natasha fought every impulse to curl in on herself under the scrutiny and forced her posture straight. Uchitel finished her observations and once again stood facing Natasha. She slowly let her gaze creep upwards to meet eyes with Uchitel, expecting to be met with the same cold indifference as always.

She instead encountered a softness and concern she didn't think was possible. "Natasha," Uchitel began soothingly, "Who beat you?"

Natasha's eyes widened in surprise. Such tenderness had never, ever emanated from her teacher before. And she'd never been asked such a preposterous question. "No-nobody," she stammered, caught off guard by the nature of the question and her teacher's tone.

"Was it your father?" Uchitel continued, clearly unconvinced of the truth of Natasha's answer.

"No," she insisted. Natasha's father never laid a finger on her. Yes, he would shout if she behaved badly or neglected her chores, but he was never violent. Ever.

"You can tell me the truth, Natasha. I promise nothing bad will happen to you."

"I'm telling the truth, Uchitel. I bumped into the door because I was in a hurry. That's all."

"Okay. But I want you to know that if someone is hurting you, you don't have to be afraid to come to me."

"Thank you." Natasha bowed her farewell and scurried out of the studio, mortified. Yelena was waiting for her in the dressing room.

"What was that all about?" she questioned. They were the only two remaining in the room, so Natasha didn't hesitate to tell Yelena everything.

"She wanted to know who beat me," Natasha explained, still in a state of disbelief.

"What?"

"She walked around and stared at my funny, and then asked who beat me."

"Well who did?"

"Nobody!" Natasha protested.

"Then where did all these bruises come from?" Yelena asked, gesturing to Natasha's bare arms and shoulders.

"Honestly, I don't know," she sighed.

"Are you getting sick or something?"

"I don't think so. I'm just tired and sore."

"You're not usually this tired and sore. Tasha, you have deep bags under your eyes that have been there for a pretty long time. That's not normal for you."

"I know it's not normal, but I don't think it's anything that serious." She hefted her dance bag over her shoulder and they started for home.

"Maybe you should take a few days off. Stay home and rest," Yelena suggested.

"No way! Uchitel will kill me if I miss class."

"She asked you if you were physically beaten because you look so terrible, Tasha. Are you sure you're not feeling worse than you're letting on?"

Natasha thought about everything that had happened over the past week or two. The fatigue. The on-again-off-again aches and pains. Her bleeding hand. The bruises. The nosebleed. If she cast her mind back far enough, she remembered just feeling...off for at least the past month. It was a lot to put off as a simple bad luck spell.

"I don't think I'm underreacting."

"So you think I'm overreacting?" Yelena countered.

"No, I didn't say that."

"You implied it."

"Well I didn't mean it."

A few minutes of their walk passed in silence, until Yelena stated affirmatively, "If I see you at school tomorrow, I'm going to punch you."

"What, why?" Natasha asked.

"Because you clearly need a day off."

"What if I feel fine tomorrow morning?"

"I'll still hit you."

"Gee, thanks. You're such a great friend."

"What would you ever do without me?"

In all honesty, Natasha didn't know.


	2. Bol'nitsa (Hospital)

That night after dinner—which she once again barely touched—Mama asked her if she was feeling ill.

Natasha considered lying, telling her mother that everything was fine and she just wasn't hungry for whatever reason, but her mind projected the concern on Yelena's face when she told Natasha she should stay home. Deep down, she knew something was wrong and should probably be addressed. "Yes, Mama," she sighed.

"What's wrong?"

Natasha outlined everything that happened the past few days, omitting no details. Her mother looked horrified when she mentioned that Uchitel asked if her father had beaten her. When she finished the story, Mama frowned and stood up to come closer, resting the back of her hand on Natasha' forehead to feel her temperature.

"I think you have a fever, malenkiy pauk," Mama said, the concern palpable in her voice. She went to grab the thermometer and returned to take her temperature. "It's only 38," Mama said when the device finished reading.

"That's not too bad," Natasha said hopefully.

"I think we ought to go to the doctor tomorrow, just to be sure."

"Will I have to miss dance?"

"I don't know. We'll try and go in the morning so you can still make it."

"Okay." Natasha trudged off to bed. That night, probably because of her friend's earlier threats to hit her, she dreamt of a dramatic fistfight between her and Yelena.

~0~

Mama took Natasha in to see the doctor early that morning. She thought about Yelena going to school and not seeing here there, and the smug look she'd get on her face when she realized Natasha had actually listened and skipped school. They didn't have to wait that long to be seen, but the time in the waiting room still made Natasha nervous.

She'd had a checkup just a few months ago before she turned eleven, but they still looked at her height and weight and all of that routine stuff before asking her mother what the problem was. Between the two of them, they told the doctors about the fatigue, the bruises, and the bleeding. As they continued through the list of symptoms, Natasha decided she disliked the look on the doctor's face. She could tell her mother didn't like it either. Natasha started to hunch over, but reflexively forced her posture back in line. Being afraid was no excuse for laziness, Uchitel's voice echoed in her head.

The doctor didn't lead up to it at all. There was absolutely no cushion to prepare Natasha or her mother for the words that would spill out of his mouth and wash over them like the current of a raging river. "Pack your bags and go straight to the hospital," he stated. "I think you have leukemia."

At the time, Natasha didn't even know what that was. But evidently her mother did. Mama started crying. She wrapped her arms around Natasha and buried her face in her hair.

"You have no time to waste," the doctor reiterated. Natasha had never seen anything like it. Mama pulled herself together with the quickness of doing up a zipper, bustled Natasha out the door and got them back home in seemingly the blink of an eye.

"Go pack your bags," Mama instructed.

Natasha didn't know what to do. She'd only ever had to pack for weekend visits to her grandparents' house or sleepovers at Yelena's. She threw everything that seemed important and would fit and zipped up the suitcase, hurrying as fast as she could because the doctor said there was no time to waste. Was she going to die? How could a low grade fever and some bruising kill her? She didn't have any more time to contemplate it because Mama was shouting at her to get going.

She practically shoved Natasha into the backseat of the car and didn't even wait for her to fasten her seatbelt before she started driving. The last time Natasha went to the hospital had been four years ago when she sprained her ankle dancing. They sent her off with a boot and instructions to rest for a few weeks, and that was that. She could feel that this time would be different.

Practically the first thing they did when they saw Natasha was take blood for testing. She hated needles. Mama held her other hand while they tied a tourniquet around her bruised arm and stabbed her, letting the red fluid drain out and fill their tubes. She couldn't help but watch it, but it scared her, so she squeezed Mama's hand even tighter and felt a reassuring squeeze in return.

Finally, they pulled the needle out and taped gauze over the site. Natasha and her mother waited. Mama took this time to call Papa and tell him what was going on. In all the commotion, they'd neglected to contact him. Mama stepped out of the room for the call, so Natasha couldn't hear any of the conversation. She was terrified that Papa would be angry with her for getting sick. When Mama came back and told her he was leaving work to come immediately, she held her breath. She could picture him storming in to berate her for letting something as silly as a little bruising and aching take her out. She should be stronger than this. But she still didn't even know what this was.

In fact, nobody took the time to tell her what was wrong with her. All they did was tests and more tests, each more painful and petrifying than the last. They made her curl up on her side and stabbed a needle into her back to pull fluid out. At least they still let her hold Mama's hand. It was the only thing keeping her from panicking.

"Mama, what's wrong with me?" she asked weakly.

"Plokhaya krov, malenkiy pauk," was all her mother would say. "Bad blood, little spider." But what did that mean?

Before the next test, they gave her medicine, which meant another needle, this one in her other arm. The site where they'd drawn the blood already had a bruise blooming around it. Natasha started to feel sleepy and slow, but internally she started to freak out. They took her somewhere else and laid her out on a hard metal table. This time Mama wasn't there to hold her hand. She heard them explain to her what they were doing, but their words sounded blurry and distant. She curled up on her side once again, but this time they didn't stick a needle in her back. This time they stuck it into her hip and dug around. She felt numb, until they burst through the bone and pain erupted across her pelvis. Natasha yelped and tried to uncurl and escape the people hurting her, but her movements were slow and unsteady, and someone was holding her in place.

She either passed out or fell asleep for a few minutes, because the next time she opened her eyes Mama was there, and Papa too. "Malenkiy pauk, it's alright," her mother's voice reached her through the fog of the medicines.

"Mama," she mumbled, vocal cords not cooperating with what she really wanted to say. Help me. Get me out of here. What's going on. Please tell me what's happening. She just wanted to know.

Plokhaya krov.

~0~

"This is beyond what we can do here. Frankly, this is beyond what _most_ hospitals can do."

"You need the best of the best."

"She needs treatment, and she needs it now, but we're not equipped to provide her what she needs to survive."

Natasha drifted in and out of consciousness, whatever they'd given her starting to wear off, and she heard the doctors talking to her parents.

"Where can she go?" Papa asked. He sounded scared. Natasha had never heard her father sound afraid before. If even Papa was scared, she definitely should be too.

"Gravesen Hospital in New York. Dr. Virginia Potts. She's the best there is in oncology, and I've already contacted her. She can take Natasha on as a patient."

"But that's so far away!" Mama cried. "How will she be able to cope all the way over there without us?"

"You can certainly go with her."

"No. We can't afford to just pick up our lives and relocate on the other side of the world," Papa explained. Natasha was confused. Why were they talking about going far away? Couldn't they fix this here?

"Can't we take some time to figure out our options and make a decision?" Mama pleaded.

"I'm afraid Natasha doesn't have time. The longer we wait to start induction, the worse her odds get."

"We'll send her to Gravesen," Papa declared.

"But Ivan, she's never been so far from home," Mama protested. "How can we do this to her? Especially if we won't be there to comfort her?"

"She's tough. If anyone can do it, our Natasha can. And we don't have a choice. It's send her away or just let her die, and I cannot sit idly by and watch my little girl die!"

Natasha heard true pain in her father's voice, something she didn't think him capable of experiencing. But everything he, Mama, and the doctors were saying terrified her. Send her away? To New York? What were they going to do to her there? Would it be any worse than all the things they'd already done to her here? She couldn't imagine how things could possibly get any worse.

~0~

Once she was awake enough to hold up her end of a conversation, her parents explained to her what needed to happen. "Natasha, you're very sick," Papa said, swallowing hard against overwhelming emotion. "And the people who can help you are in New York."

"Y-you can't help me?" she asked. Whenever she'd been sick as a kid, Mama made her hot soup and let her use the special blankets, the ones she knit just for her and promised would be Natasha's to keep when she started her own family.

Mama shook her head sadly. "No Natasha. I'm sorry, but we can't."

"Am I going to die?"

They paused. That was a bad sign. "That's why you need to go away," Mama explained. "If you don't..." she didn't even finish the sentence. Just choked out, "I can't lose you!"

"But if I leave, isn't that just the same as losing me?"

"No, malenkiy pauk. If you leave we'll know you're getting the best help."

"Okay. Then I'll go."

They returned home with a long list of instructions and a flight to catch that loomed alarmingly close in their future. Natasha's mother packed another bag while Natasha hugged Liho to her chest and gave a tearful goodbye. She didn't know if she'd ever see the little cat again, and she would miss him almost as much as she'd miss her parents and Yelena. She wouldn't even get the chance to say goodbye to her best friend. Yelena was still at dance, and none of them had time to spare to contact her parents and inform them of the dire situation.

The stress of it all must've made her zone out at times, because she didn't remember the ride to the airport or much of the flight to New York. She did, however, remember every word of her father's farewell speech to her, because of how much it both touched and frightened her.

He knelt down in front of her in order to meet her eyes. Natasha's breath quickened beneath the face mask she'd been told she must wear until a doctor said she could take it off. Apparently she might get even sicker if she breathed in germs in such a public place. She met his gaze and found an unfamiliar emotion in those deep brown irises.

"Natasha, I need you to be strong. Stronger than you've ever had to be before. Mama and I won't be there to be strong for you, so it's all up to you."

Natasha didn't want that much responsibility on her shoulders. She felt herself start to sag, and this time her training wasn't strong enough to correct it. Her eyes watered uncontrollably, tears slipping down her cheeks. Papa reached up a hand and gently dried them with a calloused finger.

"No tears," he commanded, but the order lacked all of its usual conviction. It sounded more like a plea. "You mustn't cry. You are braver than that."

She shook her head insistently. She didn't feel brave in the least. She felt like she was six years old again, being scolded for crying over a skinned knee. But this was far worse than a little cut. She felt every bruise on her small body throb in time with her racing heart.

"I can't think of anyone who has a better chance of beating this than you, Natasha," Papa continued. "I am so proud of you." He reached up and unhooked her mask from one ear to kiss her on the cheek before replacing it. He never did that. Natasha had never been more torn between being loved and being horrified.

~0~

A nice, but quiet man accompanied her until they reached the hospital in New York. She didn't mind his lack of conversation because she didn't feel much like talking herself. She was too worried about what lay ahead.

They passed busy streets full of signs in an alphabet she didn't even recognize. The hospital itself was enormous, and the inside had so many branching hallways she doubted she'd ever learn her way around, especially since she couldn't read the signs. The new environment made her want to curl up and hunch her shoulders, but she refused to relent, keeping her head held high and her shoulders back as Uchitel would always tell her. "People don't take you seriously if you slouch," she would say.

The hospital around her buzzed with voices, but there were so many she had no hope of picking up on what they were saying. The man brought her to a room towards the end of a hallway. She caught a glimpse of a few other children in the area, and she wondered if they were sick just like her. He ushered her in and promised to return soon after letting the doctors know she was here.

Natasha looked around and the stark white room, hating how plain and boring everything was. All the buildings here looked so industrial and uncomfortable, just like this room. Before she even had a chance to sit down, the man returned with a tall, thin woman in a lab coat and several other people. They all looked at her like she was a difficult puzzle they'd been charged with solving. They started talking to each other rapidly in English, and she couldn't understand a word.

Some of them started towards her, and she did make out her name, but nothing else about their intentions made itself clear. No tears, she reminded herself, although she could already feel them burning at the back of her eyes. The man who had brought her here left, and she watched him go in desperation. His was the only voice she'd heard in her native language since arriving here. Now she had no way of communicating with these new people who were already preparing to stick her with more needles.

With no one's hand to hold, she clenched her free hand into a fist to give her something else to focus on. Anything but the ache in her bones and the prick of a needle in the crook of her other arm.

The tall woman introduced herself, putting a hand to her own chest and saying, "Dr. Potts." She continued to explain her position or her plan or whatever, but Natasha didn't understand any of it. She clung to the one thing she'd managed to learn; her name was Dr. Potts. At some point not long after that, Natasha fell asleep.


	3. Odeyalo (Blanket)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I might've mentioned this before, but I'm going to say it again anyway: this story is best summarized as a brutal depiction of the realities of childhood cancer and leukemia. The next few chapters contain what I would probably call "graphic depictions of illness." Yes, there is still fluff (this is my story that we're talking about, there will always be fluff) but in this story especially it can get a bit outshadowed by other things. This is also the chapter that introduces POV Happy Hogan sections, which I'm very excited about. Just covering my bases in appropriately warning audiences. Enjoy the chapter :)

She awoke to a variety of unpleasant sensations.

Her head hurt, but whether it was due to stress, her illness, or something they'd done to her she didn't know. Her bones ached more fiercely than they ever had before. Her upper right arm felt...weird; she didn't know how to describe it. She looked at it and squeaked in terror when she found a tube sewn into it, covered with a clear dressing and connected to an ominous bag of fluid above her bed. The back of her right hand also had an IV line in it, also wrapped, and this one connected to another bag of...that was blood. Nothing else was that particular shade of red, she knew. Her feet had bled from dance on too many occasions for her not to recognize blood. But why were they dumping it into her? And what was going into the other line?

Natasha had never been more terrified in her entire life. She missed Mama and Papa. She wanted them to be here to explain what was going on and to hug her to take away the ache. She wanted Liho to gently lick her hands or sit in her lap and let her pet him. But she had nothing to even remind her of home.

Or did she?

Mama had packed her second suitcase.

Natasha swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood slowly, unsure if her legs would even hold her. They did, fortunately, so she dragged the pole holding the bags that she'd been connected to and walked over to the corner of the room where she'd left her minimal luggage. She sat down in front of the case Mama had packed and unzipped it, using only her left arm because she was petrified of accidentally ripping a needle out of her skin.

She opened up the lid, and her eyes glazed over with unshed happy tears when she found her favorite of Mama's hand-knit blankets. She awkwardly wrapped it around herself with one arm and breathed in the scent of home. She missed it so much she wanted to cry, but the image of her father's face, eyes glowing with more warmth and love than ever, prevented her from doing so. "Spasibo, Mama," she whispered. Thank you.

~0~

"We need someone on this case who speaks Russian," Dr. Potts insisted after gathering the nursing staff on the pediatric residential ward. Happy, Heimdall, Peggy, and Sharon had all been briefed on the patient who arrived earlier today, but none of them knew how to communicate with her beyond primitive hand gestures.

"We could set up a computer to translate for us," Sharon suggested.

"That'll take too long on both ends, especially if there's an emergency," Happy pointed out. "What if she's incapacitated and we need her to tell us her symptoms?"

"Happy's right," Potts said. "Plus, it's unfair if the only voice she can understand is digital. The poor girl cannot be expected to endure this without some genuine interpersonal communication."

"Talk to Dr. Lee and ask him to hire an interpreter," Heimdall suggested. "Or a nurse who speaks Russian."

"I will," Potts said. She only hoped they'd find someone before the lack of understanding caused a major issue.

~0~

Natasha may or may not have fallen asleep for a microsecond on the floor wrapped in her mother's blanket, but she startled awake when her door opened and one of the strangers walked in. He glanced between the empty bed and her, then between her and the opened suitcase.

He said something to her that sounded somewhat apologetic before reaching down and removing the blanket from her shoulders. "Nyet!" She cried, gripping the last bit of wool within her reach and refusing to let go. Mama had sent this blanket with her to keep her safe and to give her something to cling to in this alien place. Why did this man want to take it away from her?

Her grip ultimately failed her, and her last shred of hope was ripped away. The man took the blanket and closed the door behind him, leaving Natasha alone and confused. He came back a few minutes later, and she glared with all the venom she could muster. He just gazed back at her sadly. The man extended his hands and helped ease her to her feet, guiding her gently back to the bed. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it, knowing he shouldn't even bother. Natasha tucked her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, staring at the man as he sat down on the foot of her bed.

He looked sad, but she didn't understand why he would be sad. He wasn't sick. He was clearly a doctor or a nurse, someone in charge of helping sick people. Sick people like her. "Happy," he introduced himself.

"Happy," she repeated meekly. He nodded his head in encouragement. She wanted to ask Happy why he'd taken her blanket away from her, but she knew it was pointless. They just sat there in silence, Natasha attempting to interpret the shifting expressions on Happy's face.

"Sleep," he said. Just the one word. She had no idea what he meant by that. Happy stood up and walked to the head of the bed; Natasha followed his every move with a sharp, analytical gaze. He laid his hand on the edge of the pillow and repeated, "Sleep."

Ah. He wanted her to go back to sleep. But it was the middle of the day, if the light from her window was anything to go by. Why would she need to sleep? Well, she had nothing to lose by listening to the man. She curled up on her side and closed her eyes, at this point just hoping Happy would leave her alone. He acted kind, but he did steal her blanket, so she was cautious of his intentions. Her strategy worked, and Happy left as soon as her head hit the pillow.

~0~

"I think she's mad at me," Happy told Peggy.

"What makes you think that?" Peggy asked without even looking up from her work.

"She glared at me the whole time I was in there."

"Did you do something to earn her hatred?"

"I found her on the floor wrapped in a blanket she must've brought with her. I had to take it away, because we don't know where it's been and with her immune system we can't afford to risk it. It'll be sanitized, and I'll give it back, but I couldn't exactly explain that."

"I hate to say it, but she has every right to hate you if you took her things away without so much as an explanation."

"I know. I just hope she'll forgive me when I give it back."

"You can have Lee's new hire explain it."

"He's found someone?"

"Not yet, but he's made it his top priority."

~0~

Despite it being the middle of the day, Natasha did sleep. An urgent feeling in her stomach eventually dragged her up from slumber. She jerked upright, panting, and was immediately handed a pink plastic basin by an anonymous set of hands.

Natasha's back arched painfully with the force of her heaving. She gripped the basin with white knuckles, barely able to catch her breath. She didn't think it would ever end. A hand that reminded Natasha of Papa's found its way to her back and tracked easy, soothing circles. The hands took the basin away when at last the heaves ceased, leaving her sore and shaky. She collapsed back against the pillows and saw that the hands belonged to Happy.

No wonder her parents had seemed so afraid for her, why they hadn't given her a straight answer when she asked if she might die. She felt like she was dying. She still didn't even know what this illness was. What would she tell the other souls in heaven if they asked how she died when she didn't even know the answer?

~0~

More days passed, each uniquely miserable yet barely distinguishable from the rest. Natasha managed to pick up the meanings of a few very important English words. Yes. No. Sleep. Basin. Blanket.

Happy had returned her mother's blanket the day after he tore it from her hands. She internally wept with relief. She'd been afraid it was gone for good, this one connection to her family. She buried her face in it and inhaled, but it no longer smelled like home. It smelled like everything else in this hospital: harshly clean. But she was still elated to have it back.

She also learned, pretty easily, how to use the pain scale. It was just numbers that corresponded to a series of cartoon faces starting with a green smiley and ending with a crimson crying face. Pretty self explanatory. Most times they asked, she pointed to three. Sometimes four if it was a bad day. They always frowned at her suspiciously when she picked those numbers, but she couldn't figure out why. She certainly didn't want them to think she was a whiny little kid, always picking the big numbers.

Whenever she could muster the energy, she danced on the open floor beside her hospital bed. She did it barefoot, since non-slip socks were not conducive to properly working through one's feet against a tile floor. There was no room (or strength in her body) to do anything big like leaps or turns, but she ran through all the stationary combinations that had been drilled into her since she was a little kid. Her constant companion, IV pole, made a half-decent barre, and doing something as normal as tendus and développés helped distract her from the fear of everything going on.

Almost every night she dreamed the most vivid dreams she'd ever dreamt in her life. Sometimes she relived her best days in the Red Room with Uchitel, acing turns and leaping so high she felt like her fingertips might brush the ceiling. She always woke up dismayed from those dreams, hurled back into the reality of a body that hurt all the time and was too tired to do anything like that. Other times she dreamed of that imaginary sparring match with Yelena.

During her waking hours, she wondered if Yelena had been told what happened to her. Did Yelena miss her as much as she missed Yelena? She hoped not. She didn't want her friend to be hung up on missing her when she should be out living her life.

~0~

She could feel that they used medicine to make her sleep. She didn't know why they did it; she slept all the time without the medicine. When she woke up from that nap, she felt woozy and couldn't open her eyes without the light exacerbating her already miserable headache. She found a small bandage on her lower back after this.

She just wished someone could explain to her what was happening.

Another very important word Natasha learned was fever. Apparently when she had one it was a very bad thing. It certainly felt bad. They hung more bags up on her pole that made her feel even more tired and nauseous than she already did. For the first time ever, she indicated a five on their pain scale. Happy blanched.

She slept fitfully that night, woken intermittently by feeling overheated, sick, or achy. At one point, she was up for two hours throwing up, and she nearly screamed when she saw blood. The nurse with her at the time—not Happy—also looked concerned, but less so when she noticed it had come from Natasha's nose and not her mouth. She handed her a wad of gauze and showed her how to pinch her nostrils and position her head to stop the nosebleed.

By the next morning, her headache had localized to her neck and worsened by several degrees. She told Happy to the best of her ability, and he had her taken for several scans with weird machines.

They apparently found something they didn't like, and Natasha learned another new word. Shot.

Happy placed a pen-looking object on the table by her bed and sat at the foot. He pulled out his phone and started typing. He pressed a button, and a synthesized voice explained in broken Russian what was about to happen. At least he'd made an effort, Natasha thought.

A blood clot was causing her headache, and he needed to give her a new medicine to fix it. This one only came in shot form. Happy held up the pen-shaped object, which she now recognized as a syringe with a needle on the end. A big needle.

She didn't like the idea of this at all.

Happy gestured for her to lay down and delicately pulled up her shirt to reveal her abdomen. He narrated everything he was doing, but she only managed to catch one word: shot. It was her new least favorite word.

She inhaled deeply and held it there, clenching her left hand into as tight a fist as she could manage while he swept a cold alcohol swab across her skin. She tensed up as he pinched the skin to the left of her navel. When the needle went in, she managed to curl her fist so tight that her nails cut into her palm. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as he pushed the plunger down. Whatever the needle contained burned horribly on its way in.

"All done," Happy said, and just like that Natasha chose her new favorite word to go along with her least favorite.

~0~

Natasha had been deceived by the meaning of "All done." She thought it was permanent. Turns out, "all done" only meant "all done for now." The next morning, another nurse called Peggy came in wielding the same shot as yesterday. Natasha didn't want to suffer through that again.

She used the language barrier to her advantage and pretended she couldn't comprehend Peggy's instructions. But then Peggy used the same translator app that Happy had, so she lost that excuse. Peggy advanced, and Natasha reflexively shouted, "Nyet!"

Peggy sighed and repeated the translated explanation, adding in more parts about how she needed this to make her better. But Natasha was starting to lose faith in the ability of these people to make her better. Since arriving here, she felt infinitely worse than she ever had back home. "Nyet," she repeated, sitting bolt upright, shoulders down and back and fixing Peggy with a defiant glare. "No shot," she insisted. They were her first spoken English words.

Peggy once again repeated the explanation, and Natasha paused to reconsider. Her parents sent her here for a reason, and she couldn't disrespect them by refusing to accept this help. But she refused to go down without at least getting partly her way. "Happy shot," she requested.

"Happy shot?" Peggy sounded confused. Natasha thought she'd made herself very clear.

"Happy," she repeated, and this finally nudged Peggy far enough in the right direction. She nodded and slipped out of the room. A few minutes later, Happy came in with a poorly-concealed smile on his face. He eased her through the injection exactly the same as last time, only this time he used the right side of her abdomen. She again almost drew blood from her palm by clenching her fist so tightly.

"All done," Happy stated. Natasha didn't trust him this time. She suspected there would be more shots in her future.

~0~

"Have you noticed that she never cries?" Happy asked. Once again, he found himself talking about Natasha with Peggy. He had to admit he was more than a little proud that she'd requested him specifically to administer her Lovenox injection. To bond with a patient and earn their trust was the epitome of nursing.

"Hmm, you're right. I've never seen her cry," Peggy remarked.

"It's incredible. She's only eleven years old, enduring possibly the worst thing a kid can endure surrounded by strangers who don't even speak her language, and she hasn't shed a tear."

"Well, not in front of any of us."

"Lovenox freaking hurts, Peggy, and she just sits there and takes it. I've seen kids much older than her tear up."

"She's a trooper."

"And her pain scale reports are skewed so far left. The other day, she was on the very tail end of her pain meds, maybe ten minutes away from needing the next dose, and she said three. A typical person in that situation would report at least a seven."

"Maybe it's a Russian thing," Peggy suggested. "The harsh north hardens them."

"She's from Volgograd, not Siberia," Happy countered.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Hap. She's a tough kid. I just pray this treatment doesn't crack her by the time she's through."

"We won't let it."


	4. Perevodchik (Translator)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, instead of working on more prequels (or homework) like I should be doing, I've spent a lot of time in the past week writing material for the sequel. It just hit 40k words, and I'm so excited I wanted to share that information with you. I don't have an estimate on how long it will be by the time I'm finished, but I do know that I still have a long way to go. I've also made some good progress on the Parker prequel, and it will probably end up being about 10-12 chapters. So there's my Gravesen Chronicles update. Thanks for tuning in, and now please enjoy the fourth chapter of the story you're actually reading right now :)

That day, Natasha felt stronger than she ever had since starting this nightmare. She was awake enough to really feel the uncleanliness from endless days in this hospital bed. She really needed a shower, but she didn't know how to ask for one. Fortunately, the next nurse to come in to visit her was Happy, the best at understanding what she needed.

"Dush," she said, the Russian for shower. He shook his head and held up a finger for her to wait. He pulled out the phone he used for translating and passed it to her. She took it eagerly and typed what she meant on the Cyrillic keyboard. It translated and read the word, "shower" aloud.

"Shower," she repeated.

"No," he said. "Not yet." She didn't know what that second part meant. Happy strode up to her IV pole and indicated the bag with red medicine in it. She'd learned a while ago that this color medicine and a few of the others were called "chemo." The bag was still about a third full. Happy pointed to the fill level and dragged his finger to the bottom of the bag.

"All done chemo. Then shower." He then showed her the red call button attached to her bed and, with the help of the translator app, told her to push it when the chemo finished. Natasha nodded enthusiastically.

Never had she wished so badly for the medicine to flow faster. The slow drip drip seemed to drag on for ages. She did have to take a brief break from watching it to vomit, but as soon as she was able she resumed her staring contest with the little bag. The instant the last drop left, her finger slammed the button.

Happy seemingly took forever in getting here. He walked in and glanced at the IV bag to ensure she hadn't rushed it, then set about disconnecting the bags from the tube sewn into her arm. He also pulled the little needle in the back of her hand and placed a bandage on the spot. She thought that would be it and moved to stand and follow directions to the nearest shower, but Happy stopped her. She stared at him, puzzled, while he meticulously wrapped up the line in her arm with several layers of protection. She could barely bend her elbow by the time he was finished, but she didn't really mind as long as she got to go shower. She figured this was necessary; maybe water was bad for it.

Happy used the app to give her instructions on how to shower here and to pull the cord in there if she needed anything. For a moment she worried he'd accompany her and help out, but fortunately he allowed her privacy in this. Excited to finally be clean, she halted when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her face was all swollen and puffy to the point where she hardly recognized herself. Her hair looked filthy and ragged, like it hadn't been washed in days—which it hadn't.

She ran the water until it reached a satisfactory temperature and stepped in. She washed everything twice, careful not to disturb Happy's wrapping of her arm. When she got around to washing her hair, she was mortified to feel huge clumps of it stick in her hands and come out of her head. She pulled at more locks, and they just kept coming until the shower floor was covered in chunks of dirty blonde hair. She nearly panicked, thinking of how Uchitel would react if Natasha didn't have enough hair to put up in a bun. She put a hand against the wall to steady herself and forcibly regulated her breathing. It was just hair. Just like toenails falling off; it would grow back.

She turned off the water and dried herself, getting dressed slowly. Standing up for so long had tired her out, she was upset to notice. She used to be able to dance for hours upon hours, and now she couldn't even stand still for half an hour without feeling like she needed a nap. She returned to her room and sat down on the bed, exhaustion creeping up like winter after an overly long summer. Happy came in to check on her within a few minutes, and he did a double take upon seeing the state of her hair. She didn't even want to think about what it looked like now. It would probably look better all gone than in this ridiculously thin, ratted state. That gave her an idea.

She looked at Happy urgently as he unwrapped her arm from its waterproof prison and connected the line to the bags of clear fluid. "Volosy all done," she stated, combining Russian and her minimal English in the hopes of getting her point across. She tugged at her hair to really hammer it home.

"Hair all done?" Happy repeated hesitantly.

"Yes," she nodded. "No hair."

"Chemo," he explained. "Chemo, then no hair." She'd come to figure out that "then" meant the first thing happened, followed by the second thing. So the medicine made her hair fall out. Strange.

"Yes hair," she said, indicating the straggles that remained. "No hair."

Happy grew frustrated and just handed her the phone to translate. "I want no hair," Natasha told him.

"You won't have any left soon," he wrote back. This conversation was taking an excruciatingly long time.

"I want no hair now," she insisted. Happy perked up at finally understanding her, then gestured for her to wait just a bit. He returned with a razor and sat behind her, gently shaving the remains of her hair while she giggled at the tickling sensation. Natasha didn't remember the last time she'd laughed.

~0~

That evening, Peggy came in bearing what Natasha instantly recognized as her shot. "Happy shot," she immediately said.

"No Happy," Peggy sighed.

"Yes Happy."

Peggy had the words, "Happy's not here" translated. "Happy can't do shot."

Natasha frowned, but recognized that she really had no choice in this matter. She lay down and accepted that this was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not. Peggy didn't go for her abdomen, instead cleaning and pinching the skin on Natasha's left thigh. Natasha clenched her fist again, feeling her nails settle into the same crevices in her palm they always did. Somehow Peggy's hurt twice as badly as Happy's. And she didn't cheerily say "all done" afterwards; she just left. Though she really, really wanted to, Natasha still did not cry.

She thought the shots would be the worst part of this experience. But the next day the stomach pain began.

It struck rhythmically in almost exact twenty minute intervals, making her consider the possibility it was all in her head. It was for that reason she didn't immediately report it.

Happy was here to do her morning shot—she knew now that this was a twice daily thing for the foreseeable future. Papa wasn't kidding when he said she'd have to be stronger than ever before. The constant pain was starting to wear her down. She felt like she'd been turning nonstop since this ordeal started, changing her spot every time some new symptom popped up. Uchitel's voice resonated in her head, shouting to keep her form and ignore the pain. It worked, to a degree.

Natasha was given a further distraction from the agony when a new nurse was introduced. Happy and the woman came in together, and at first Natasha was suspicious of what was about to happen. They never needed two nurses. But Happy smiled genuinely, so she knew they weren't here to find a new way to hurt her. The woman introduced herself, in flawless and perfectly-accented Russian, as Maria Hill, and asked Natasha if she needed anything.

Natasha sat upright and gazed in wonder at this new arrival. She hadn't heard her language from a human voice since the quiet man abandoned her here. Was this woman just here for today, or was this a permanent new addition to her communication options? She paused to consider how to ask this, then mentally kicked herself before forgetting she didn't have to attempt to use English.

"Tell me what's going on," she demanded in Russian, unaccustomed to speaking with conviction and confidence that she'd be understood.

"What's going on? I'm a new nurse here; they hired me just for you so you don't have to worry about learning English or typing everything you need to say."

"I figured that much out for myself. I meant, what's going on with me. This whole time, nobody's bothered to tell me why I'm sick." She noticed Happy observing their conversation with wonder, head bobbing between them like a spectator following the ball at a tennis match. He was probably also unused to Natasha using so many words at once.

"Oh," Maria seemed disappointed in Natasha's first request. Natasha worried they might still refuse to tell her, which was ridiculous. "That's going to be a long conversation."

"I have plenty of time," Natasha remarked. Maria and Happy exchanged a glance. Then Happy left and Maria took a seat next to Natasha's bed.

"Natasha, you have leukemia," Maria explained. She'd heard that word before; the doctor back home had said it when he sent her to the hospital, but she didn't know what it meant.

"What's that?"

"Plokhaya krov." Mama had used that exact same phrase. Bad blood. "Leukemia is a form of cancer that affects the cells in the blood."

"Cancer?" Natasha did know that word, but she never thought it would ever be applied to her.

"Yes. That's why you're on chemo, to kill it."

"If it's killing the bad blood, why does it make me feel so bad?"

"Because it also kills some good cells."

"How long do I have to have it before the bad blood is gone?"

"There's not a definite answer to that question. It depends on how you and the bad blood react to the medicine."

The stomach pain returned with a vengeance, and Natasha staunched a gasp. She hid it well enough that Maria didn't notice a thing.

"Do you have any more questions?" Maria asked. Natasha had many, so she quickly prioritized them in her head in case Maria had to leave at some point during this conversation.

"Why do they make me sleep sometimes if I sleep all the time anyway? It gives me a headache when they do that," she complained.

"The bad blood cells are also in your spine," Maria said. "And they need to put chemo there too, which requires staying still for a really long time. They put you to sleep for it so you don't have to worry about that."

"I can stay still," Natasha insisted. In the Red Room they once spent two hours just holding different positions. That was a whole different kind of muscle fatigue. Natasha doubted that any position they'd ask her to hold here would be anywhere near as difficult as that.

"Okay. Next time they do your spinal chemo, I'll let them know you don't want to be put to sleep."

Natasha smiled, one goal accomplished. But there was still a lot more she wanted to know. "Why did Happy take my blanket away and give it back smelling so clean?"

"Between the leukemia and the chemo, your immune system doesn't work very well. It is very easy for bacteria or viruses to make you sick, and if they do your body won't be able to fight them off like normal."

"Will it always be like that?"

"Until you finish treatment, yes, it will be very dangerous if you get sick. You'll have to be careful. They took your blanket away to get rid of anything on it that might make you sick."

"When will I finish treatment?"

"We don't know yet," Maria reiterated. "But I'll be working here until you do, so if you need to talk just let me know."

"But you can't be at work all the time."

"You're right, but I'll be here most of the time. You can manage if I'm not there for a little bit, can't you? You've done it so far."

"Yes. I've already learned a little bit of English, but it's a very strange language."

"Yes, it is. When you're feeling better, we have a tutor here who will give you lessons." The idea of English lessons enticed Natasha, who thought she was well enough to learn now. It wasn't like dance, which required physical strength and stamina. She could learn speaking without moving from this spot.

"I can start lessons now," she said. "I feel well enough to stay awake just to learn."

"That's great, but we're going to wait a few days just to make sure. We don't want you to overexert yourself."

"Okay."

"Anything else?"

"You can tell Happy he's done a very good job."

~0~

"Natasha wanted me to tell you you're very good at your job," Maria told Happy. His face lit up with delight.

"That's so sweet. What else did she ask about?"

"She just wanted to understand what was making her so sick, and why the medicine made her feel even sicker. She also asked why you took away her blanket," Maria explained.

"Did she still seem mad about it?"

"No. She obviously appreciates you."

"Not as much as she appreciates you. Thank you so much for taking this job; you're going to make a lot of people's lives so much better."

"You're welcome. That's why I took it. And it pays far better than my previous position," she chuffed.

"Always a plus."

"She also requested no anesthesia for her next spinal chemo."

"Really?"

"Yes. Is there a problem?"

"Not at all. I just don't want her to suffer any more than she already has to."

"I think she'll actually feel like she's suffering less if she's allowed to make those sorts of decisions."

"That's a good point. If it starts to go south, they can always put her out during."

~0~

She concluded the stomach pain was not psychosomatic when it persisted for another two days, lasting longer and happening more frequently with each passing hour. But she still didn't want to share it. Last time she told the nurses about her pain, they started giving her shots twice a day. She didn't want something like that to happen again. But as the hours stretched on, she started to feel worse. So much worse that her memories of that time started to grow hazy.

What she did remember was learning two new words, both of which started with the same sound. Shock. And shit.

Natasha couldn't think straight. The world spun around her, and she alternated between hot and cold more rapidly than Uchitel could call someone out for not pointing their feet. Dizziness swamped her head despite her not doing anything. She hadn't been dizzy since she first started learning to turn and failed to spot properly.

She sensed a frantic energy from every doctor and nurse that visited her during that time, thought she couldn't make out or remember any of their faces. Even Maria's Russian failed to elicit any sort of comprehension of the situation from Natasha. Her spinning head had no room for a multitude of emotions, but one managed to stick and bounce around inside her skull: fear.

Consciousness abandoned her at some point, and Natasha's memory failed to recollect anything until she finally awoke lucid many days later, tired and achy all over.

"In the future you need to tell us when something hurts," Maria insisted sternly. "It is very dangerous for you to ignore anything abnormal."

"Sorry," Natasha muttered.

"You almost died," the nurse informed her. This was news to Natasha. She knew things had spiraled, but she had no idea just how dire the situation had become.

"What happened?"

"Well, there's a fancy medical word for it. It's called intussusception. It means a part of your intestines telescoped in on themselves, and it caused a tear. That caused an infection, which is why you felt so sick. You went into shock. They had to do surgery to fix the tear. Luckily, the intussusception didn't return after they fixed it. You had Happy and Dr. Potts and me very worried."

Natasha regretted not saying anything before. Maria clearly sounded upset with her, as much as she tried to disguise it. She thought powering through the pain demonstrated resilience, as it always had in dance class, but in this reality it had just endangered her even more.

"I just didn't want to sound whiny," Natasha admitted.

Maria sighed sadly, "You could never sound whiny, Natasha. You're sick, and sometimes bad things are going to happen. But you need to tell us when they do so that we can help you before you get sicker."

"Okay."

"Can you promise you'll tell someone if you feel that something is wrong? Even if it seems little?"

"I promise."

~0~

Looking after the incision on her abdomen was added to the rotation of her daily care. Natasha got to see the cut; it was larger than she expected. Maria told her it would probably leave a scar. She found she didn't mind some physical representation of everything she'd been through here. At least it wasn't somewhere visible. Uchitel would croak if she had a scar anywhere noticeable to an audience. So would Papa.

It didn't hurt nearly as badly as she thought it might. However, she was irked by the fact she wasn't allowed to eat. She'd been fed every day since coming here, and though she sometimes couldn't keep it down or didn't finish her meals, she knew she needed nutrition and therefore listened to her appetite. It was telling her she needed to eat, but apparently she wasn't allowed for another two whole days because they didn't want to upset the stitched-together tear in her intestines.

Natasha thought she knew pain by this leg of her journey. Neither the shooting ache in her bones nor the headaches after spinal chemo could compare to the mental and physical agony of starving. Now, the doctors and nurses weren't passively allowing her to starve. They told her all the nutrition and hydration she needed for now entered her body through the IV line, but her stomach didn't know that.

She deemed it the worst part of cancer treatment, even though it wasn't technically due to her leukemia.


	5. Sem'ya (Family)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, last chapter!

A few days after that came her next round of spinal chemo. Fortunately, they heeded her wishes and allowed her to refuse anesthesia. Maria went with her and provided all the instructions. She lay on her side while they stuck a needle in her lower back, just as the doctors back home had done to diagnose her with leukemia, and stayed there for thirty minutes. Then, they removed the needle and she stayed flat on her back for an hour. All things considered, Natasha found it rather relaxing.

She convinced Happy to let her have a television by arguing it would improve her language skills. Spy thrillers, it turned out, piqued her interest, and she spent nearly all her waking hours watching and picking up on new words and phrases. Maybe the vocabulary common in those films didn't align perfectly with the most commonly used English, but it held her attention better than the children's shows or any other genres.

She grew proficient enough that she could survive without Maria or a translator app. It required some serious, often ridiculous, circumlocution, but Natasha preferred it to typing what she needed to say. It was good practice. Happy and the other nurses were clearly impressed with her progress. Apparently she was learning quickly.

One lesson she'd already taken to heart was the necessity of reporting new aches and pains. The worsening throbbing in her ankles certainly qualified. After she told Happy about it, they took her to one of the weird noisy machines again. She could tell they'd found something bad when they brought Maria to explain. They knew her English was good enough to understand if they told her everything was fine, that it was just another side effect of the chemo. Natasha expected to be told she'd have to get more shots or another surgery or something equally as painful. She didn't expect to be told they had to change their entire treatment plan.

"Natasha, the chemo medicines that you're on sometimes have different side effects, and some of them are more common than others," Maria translated Dr. Potts' words for her. "Your scans show that you're experiencing a rare side effect called avascular necrosis."

"What is that?"

"It means your bones aren't getting enough blood, and they're growing weak and dying."

"How do you fix it?"

"That's the thing. We can't fix it, we can only stop it from getting worse. To do that, we have to adjust the types of medicine you're getting. You can't have any more steroids."

"Okay." She didn't understand why this was such a big deal.

"The damage that's already done can't be reversed, so you need to be careful. The damage is worst in your ankles, so you can't do anything that puts too much strain on them or you could break them."

"Break my ankles?" That was one of the most devastating injuries a ballerina could have. Uchitel would eviscerate her if she broke an ankle.

"Yes."

"What sorts of things put too much strain on them?"

"Things like running or dancing."

"No dancing?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Is there a chance it will ever get better?" she asked.

"We don't see it in people as young as you very often, so I don't know anything for certain. It's unlikely, but I'm not willing to say it's impossible," Dr. Potts said. "We'll do another MRI later on to see if there's been any improvement."

Natasha came closer to crying than ever before upon hearing that news. She'd been dancing six days a week for as long as she could remember. What would she do when she eventually went home if she couldn't return to it? How would Yelena react? Could they even remain friends if Natasha didn't join her for endless hours in the Red Room? Ballet was her entire identity, and now she'd lost it. Now the only thing that really defined her was cancer. She didn't like that idea at all.

She also didn't like the next round of news that Dr. Potts had to share. Natasha's cancer cells weren't responding as quickly as they should. By the end of her fourth week here—what should have been the end of the induction round—she still had too many blasts in her bone marrow to advance to the next phase. Which meant she had to repeat the exact same regimen again. Four more weeks of this same caliber of chemotherapy, minus the steroids that had destroyed her bones and robbed her of dance.

Happy tried to fix it. He brought one of the visiting therapy dogs to her room for her to pet and play with. Natasha preferred cats, and running her fingers through the soft fur of the gray and black dog reminded her of Liho. She missed him just as much as she missed her family. When Maria stopped by to take the dog back to the common room to see the other kids, she asked Natasha if she enjoyed it.

"Dog is nice." Natasha shrugged. "I like cats more." Maria asked her if she had a pet cat, and Natasha eagerly told her all about Liho. He often curled up in her dance bag, got irritatingly underfoot if she ever practiced at home, and snuggled with her when she sat doing homework. Talking about him only made her yearning for home grow from a gnawing itch to a gaping chasm in her soul. The next time she called her parents she asked if they could pet Liho to get him to purr and put him on the phone. If she closed her eyes and listened she could almost imagine she was there with them.

~0~

"How did it go?" Happy asked Maria.

"Pretty well, I think," Maria replied. "She said she prefers cats."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She talked a bit about her cat back home."

"What did she say?"

"His name is Liho, and he's pitch black. The way she talked; it definitely sounds like she misses him."

"I'll bet. I would be hard to be torn away from a pet like that. I feel so bad that she's going to be here that much longer. Induction isn't kind to anybody, and doing it a second time isn't going to be fun."

"I just hope she learned her lesson from the intussusception nightmare. If she continues to hide symptoms, we're all going to have to develop mind-reading abilities to have any hope of doing our jobs well."

"I think she took it to heart. She's a smart kid."

"For sure. Her English has come so far for so little time and so little interaction."

"It's those spy movies, I guess."

"It's so funny that she enjoys them so much. I would've never guessed."

"To each her own."

~0~

A few days after her second induction began, Happy presented Natasha with a surprise. A stuffed black cat that looked so much like her Liho she would've believed him if he'd told her he flew to Russia and brought him back. She held the animal up to her face and gazed into its beaded eyes. She found life in them, despite the fact she held a stuffed animal and not a living creature. She considered this the kindest gift she'd ever received, especially given that she'd received it from someone with no obligation to get her anything at all.

However, she soon discovered the gift came with a catch. Today she would get her port implanted. Apparently leukemia treatment lasted so long that they couldn't continue to use the line in her arm and needed more long-term access to her big veins. Hence the port. Maria offered her the choice between staying awake and being anesthetized for the duration, and Natasha chose awake. She always chose awake if she could. It unsettled her knowing they could do literally anything they pleased if they knocked her out. Awake, she remained at least somewhat informed of what was going on.

They numbed the skin on her chest and sanitized it thoroughly. She turned her head away and clutched her little black cat by the paw, not willing to look at them while they sliced into her. Frankly, it was one of the least uncomfortable things she'd endured since arriving here. Plus, Maria had told her she could shower normally with a port and didn't have to wrap it up like crazy as she'd had to do with the PICC line—unless it was accessed. Natasha looked forward to it.

She did not look forward to receiving chemo through this new device. The PICC line stuck out from her skin and only needed to be flushed before it was connected to whatever line was necessary. This remained hidden under her skin, and she had a sneaking suspicion there would be needles involved.

There were needles involved.

Well, just one. But it was a big one. Bigger than her Lovenox injections.

She did not like this new method.

They'd numbed the area with a special cream a while ago, but the thought of that needle piercing her disturbed her more than the fear of physical pain. She couldn't help but squirm when the nurse approached her with it.

"Natasha, none of that," she chided. Natasha steeled herself and allowed it to happen. The anticipation had been worse than the actuality. The numbing cream worked wonders and she barely felt pain as the needle entered. As the nurse flushed the line, Natasha tasted salt and metal, which she didn't like one bit. But after that, everything continued much the same as the first time, with one crucial difference: she didn't have to stay completely isolated in her room anymore.

There were other kids here, she knew. Sometimes she heard them talking in the hallway, but until now she hadn't been allowed to meet them. Natasha took advantage of this newfound freedom at her first opportunity, finding her way to a room full of comfy couches and a television. A girl several years older than her carried a big red box from the closet to a table, where two other kids awaited. Both of them looked like fellow cancer patients if the lack of hair was anything to go on.

"Hi," the girl greeted. The two boys also said hello.

"Hi," she replied.

"You must be the leukemia patient that moved in a few weeks ago. What's your name?" she asked.

"Natasha."

"Welcome to Gravesen, Natasha. I'm Carol, and this is Bucky and Clint. Would you like to play with us?"

Natasha nodded eagerly. She sat down at the table next to the younger boy and watched passively as they laid out a bunch of pieces. Fortunately, it didn't appear that this game required a lot of reading, as she still hadn't learned how to decipher English characters. Before they began, she warned the others, "My English is not great."

"That's okay. We'll work around that," Carol assured. She spent twenty minutes going over how to play and demonstrated several sample turns with Clint and Bucky's help. Natasha quickly recognized that the language barrier wouldn't even be that big of an issue because most of the game relied on numbers, and most of the cards were labeled with symbols and not words. By the end of the sixth round, Natasha was winning handedly despite facing far more experienced players.

"Bucky, you can't just straight up build a city," Carol chided. "You have to build a settlement first and then turn it into a city."

"But I don't have the cards for a settlement."

"Bummer."

"Fine," Bucky grumbled, removing his city piece from the board and nodding to Clint to take his turn.

"So Natasha, where are you from?" Clint asked as everyone gathered their cards from his roll of a five.

"Gulag in east Siberia," she answered, enjoying the looks of shock and surprise that cross all of their faces. They completely believed her.

"Those are real?" Clint questioned. "I thought those were made up."

"They are very real," Natasha assured. "And very cold."

"Wait, a minute, you're telling me we're sitting here playing board games with a prisoner?"

"No, I play board game with idiots," she replied with a smirk.

"Of course she's kidding," Carol mumbled. "I can't believe I fell for that for even a second."

"You did," Natasha reminded her.

"We all did. Nice job," Bucky commended. "You're going to be glad you have a sense of humor. Cancer doesn't leave much to laugh at."

"So true," Clint sighed. They resumed the game, and Natasha soon ran away with it and won by three victory points. They started cleaning up and when Carol took the box back to the closet, Natasha noticed the poster on the wall.

"What is this?" she asked.

"That's the gauntlet," Carol told her. She proceeded to explain all about Thanatos and the six aspects of a life. At first, Natasha was skeptical of the idea, but she observed the way Bucky and Clint looked appreciatively at the gauntlet and she realized how important it was to them. She wrote her own name—in Cyrillic characters of course, they were way prettier—and moved her Xs to where she thought they belonged. Glancing at the other names, she counted seven names before hers.

"Who?" she asked, pointing to the names.

"Who else is here?" Carol confirmed. Natasha nodded. She pointed to the second name on the list and explained, "This is Steve. He's here a few times a year for his lungs. Clint and Bucky are right here, as you know. Peter hangs out with us a lot, but I think he's with Dr. van Dyne right now. And then there's Thor and Nick."

"Crowded," Natasha remarked.

"Yeah, there's a lot more people here now than there was a few months ago. At one point it was just me and Steve," she explained.

"How romantic," Bucky said playfully. Carol just rolled her eyes at him.

~0~

Natasha considered herself pretty lucky when a charity group donated wigs to the hospital. Happy showed her the options, and she eagerly chose one dark red. She'd always secretly wanted to be a redhead. Her natural dirty blonde hair had always seemed so boring. She looked in the mirror and barely recognized herself with hair. She'd grown accustomed to baldness, but she loved having the option not to advertise her cancer to the entire hospital.

That same day, they provided her with a cell phone. She didn't know where they got it or how they set it up with the systems already in Russian, but she didn't waste too much time questioning it. Now she didn't have to ask when she wanted to call her parents, something she'd done as many times as possible since she arrived here. Hearing her native tongue from Mama and Papa eased the fear constantly gnawing at her, and her updates eased their fear of what was happening to her so far away from home. Another perk: being added to the Gravesen group chat.

Clint added her to it the next time they saw each other. He and Nick had similar chemo schedules, so she spent as much time as she could sitting in the comfy armchairs of the chemo clinic with them. When she finished induction and moved onto intensification, she'd get her own infusions in here too. For now, though, home base for medication administration was still her room. Technically, she wasn't _supposed_ to wander around, but she memorized the schedules of all the nurses and managed to sneak around them. Heimdall knew what she was up to, but for whatever reason he didn't bust her. Maybe he understood that the company of Clint and Nick was beneficial enough for her mental health to balance out whatever risks leaving her room posed. Besides, she was careful to wear a face mask.

The three of them formed a posse of sorts, sharing in the misery of cancer treatment. Bucky also spent time in here, but he often had Steve visiting him or he was texting his school friends. He certainly didn't ignore them when their infusion times overlapped, but he didn't participate in every single conversation. Natasha bonded especially with Clint, their rooms situated directly across the hallway from each other. They exchanged lessons in Russian and American Sign Language, sometimes sneaking across the hall after curfew to review whatever they'd covered earlier that afternoon. Clint didn't need to sign; his hearing aids almost completely corrected the deficit, but he'd learned it anyway during a break between treatments when he'd still been unable to return to normal school. Occasionally, when one of their friends was being particularly annoying, they would sign or mutter in Russian at each other. They didn't actually poke fun of anyone, just said random phrases and pretended it was gossip just to piss them off.

She could almost forget she was sick when she hung out with Clint. Key word _almost_. The nausea, fatigue, jaw pain, and the ache that lingered in her ankles despite stopping steroids still plagued her, but the distraction of company helped her mind focus elsewhere and make the sensations less horrible. Two new arrivals increased the general hustle and bustle about the ward: Bruce Banner and Peter Quill. They were several years older so Natasha didn't see them all that often, but she witnessed their names placed on the gauntlet and their numbers added to the group chat. The ward neared maximum capacity and she wondered what would happen if the hospital received more patients than it could house.

Almost the instant she thought that, she received a text that made her wish she hadn't. Carol, who she hadn't even gotten to know all that well, yet was always kind to her, messaged the group to inform them things weren't looking good for her. Natasha ran the text through a translator to ensure she wasn't mistaken in its meaning. After that message was delivered Natasha never saw her again.

Nick informed her of Carol's death a week after the text. Natasha didn't know what to feel—didn't even know how to feel anything in that moment. Things like that happened all the time, especially in hospitals, but Natasha had never personally known anyone who died so young. Bucky sent an invitation for everyone to join him in the common room. The older boy called Steve was there, even though he wasn't admitted as a patient at the time. He shed more tears than any of the other kids, so Natasha figured he must have known Carol best. Bucky gave a brief speech and then allowed Steve to move Carol's Xs into the Thanatos column to represent the conclusion of her fight.

After that, Natasha spent ten minutes staring at the list of group chat members, a list which still included Carol. She wondered how long they would leave her number there before working up the nerve to delete it or the phone number being recycled. Or maybe it was tradition never to remove dead people from the chat. Natasha didn't know much about the formalities.

She didn't even have the energy to clench her fist during her Lovenox injection. Oddly, it hurt less than it ever had before. Maybe because her brain was too busy coping with another type of pain. She didn't sleep well that night, but the next morning Happy brought her something that lifted her spirits beyond what she ever thought possible.

A letter from home.

She tore into it eagerly, temporarily forgetting all about the sorrows of yesterday, and pulled out a piece of paper covered in Yelena's impeccable handwriting. Natasha had always been jealous of her friend's handwriting. She ran her fingers over the gorgeous Cyrillic letters before reading, savoring this taste of home. After a few minutes just staring at it, she finally allowed herself to read the letter:

_Tasha,_

_I cannot put into words how much I miss you. All of the classrooms we shared and even the Red Room feel hollow without you in them. Uchitel nearly cried when I told her that her best dancer ran off to New York for cancer treatment. I hope everything is going well and that you will get better soon so you can return home to your parents and me. But, I do give you credit for taking my advice and skipping school that day. I won't have to hit you after all._

_I know you probably don't want me to write about anything that will make you sad, but I have to say that your parents seem a bit lost without you. My folks have them over for dinner at least once a week to get them out of their empty house. I hear Liho misses you too, but not as much as I do. I looked up the hospital you're in and it seems like a place where they know what they're doing, which is good. I hope you make some new friends there, just promise not to replace me, okay? Also, hope your hair grows back red just like you've always wanted._

_—Yelena_

Natasha held the letter to her chest and genuinely grinned. Clint and Nick were good friends, yes, but she could never replace someone as kind and thoughtful as Yelena. Never ever.

~0~

The tragic news of Carol's passing dampened Natasha's mood for days, but exciting news from her bone marrow pull—performed without sedation per her request—turned her right around. They found no blasts. She could move on to intensification. Dr. Potts did warn her that the fact it had taken two whole rounds of induction to get her to this stage placed her firmly in the high risk of relapse category, so it was crucial they did everything right for the entire remainder of her treatment. Natasha understood the seriousness of this, so she did everything the nurses and doctors told her to without complaint or tears. As she proudly told her father when she called him most mornings, she still hadn't cried. Even though sometimes she really, really wanted to.

Steve showed up a week after Carol died, not just to accompany Bucky as he was admitted for chemo, but for his own treatment. He moved in to the room next to Carol's empty one and didn't interact much with anyone except Bucky. Now that Natasha was finished induction, she found she had more free time during which she actually felt up to doing stuff. Thor messaged the group asking if anyone was down for a round of Catan, and Quill, Natasha, and Bucky replied yes. She was eager to beat them, already formulating a plan to win. Her strategy had remained pretty consistent over the last several games, and everyone expected her to continue using it. If everyone expected one thing of her, it became that much easier to win another way. That was exactly what she planned to do. Everything fell into place and she sprung her trap, just in time for Steve and a new resident patient he'd dragged in with him to witness her victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it folks! As you can see, I wasn't kidding when I said these end exactly where Gravesen begins. I also hope you enjoyed your first little taste of Carol content. There's much more where that came from, especially when we get to Steve and Parker. Saturday I'll be posting Lightning in a Bottleneck, which will take us through the journey of Thor. See you there :)

**Author's Note:**

> "If you're not sore, you're dead" is an actual quote from a Russian ballet teacher at the studio I used to dance at :)


End file.
